In-Home Consultation

Just like your doctor needs to see you in person before an accurate diagnosis is possible, we need to view many conditions in your home before we can provide solutions to your HVAC problems. Our Comfort Specialists will be glad to make an appointment with you for this FREE home visit. The Comfort Specialist will usually spend about two hours inspecting your home and HVAC equipment,   calculating and designing alternate solutions for you to consider and providing you with written documents that help you to understand our recommendations.

Load Calculation

The accepted method of calculating the proper capacity of an air conditioning unit is called Manual J, after the teaching manual that provides information necessary to do the calculation. Basically, every surface that stands between you and the outdoor climate (roof, ceiling, walls, floor) is analyzed to determine the amount of heat that will pass thru that surface under given conditions. I summer, heat passes from the outside to the inside and must be gathered by the cooling system and rejected back to the outside. In winter, heat moves in the other direction, so your heating system must find or produce heat and put it into the house to make up for what is lost.

 Chances are you have lived in a house in which an air conditioning contractor selected the equipment without performing a load calculation for the building. Unfortunately, this has been and continues to be "overlooked" by many in the industry, usually resulting in equipment that is significantly over sized. Proper selection of equipment capacity using Manual J is essential to assure you that your home will be properly dehumidified, that you are not paying for larger equipment that you do not need and that your energy usage is as low as it can be.

Energy Audit

With Texas ' changing weather and the increasing cost of energy, we are all forced to find ways to cut rising costs and improve our home energy efficiency and comfort.   At All Year we will perform a thorough inspection to determine the energy inefficiencies in your home.   We will be able to pinpoint where your house is losing energy as well as determine the efficiency of your home's heating and cooling systems. Once we are finished we will provide you with a report and provide recommendations to repair/improve the inefficiencies.

Duct Testing

The condition of your heating and cooling duct systems is vital to the overall efficiency of your system and the comfort levels in each room of your entire home. Duct systems can affect the indoor air quality of a home. If the return duct system is leaky, it could be drawing stale or polluted air into the duct system and distributing it throughout the home. Duct testing can indicate the relative leakiness of the ducts and help determine if the duct system should be sealed, repaired, or renovated. Duct testing is strongly recommended when a new heating and air conditioning unit is being installed. If the existing duct is leaky and inefficient before the new unit is installed, it will still be leaky and inefficient after the new unit is installed unless the ducts are tested and sealed. It does not make sense to install a new energy efficient heating and air conditioning unit unless the duct system is also energy efficient and provides the correct amount of heated or cooled air to each room.

Duct Design

HVAC design must begin with an accurate room-by-room load calculation. This analysis of the building will report the cooling and heating load of the building and of each individual room. A proper design must provide the right proportion of the airflow to each room so that all rooms remain within the desired temperature range over the normal cycling of the unit by the thermostat. Since the thermostat can only be in one room, it is critical that the duct design is correct or some rooms may be too warm while others may be too cold. Duct systems are built with one or more of   three materials: metal, fiberglass duct board and flex-duct.

Conservation Services

Insulation

You can reduce your home's heating and cooling costs through proper insulation and air sealing techniques. These techniques will also make your home more comfortable. Unless your home was specifically constructed for energy efficiency, you can usually reduce your energy bills by adding more insulation. Many older homes have less insulation than homes built today, but adding insulation to a newer home may also pay for itself within a few years.

Solar Screens

Solar screens can lower your utility bills immediately. Studies have shown the ability of solar screens to reduce the necessary "tonnage" of an air conditioning system up to 1.5 tons, reduce the overall "load" on the system up to 60%, lower interior temperatures up to 20 degrees, and save you money on utility bills immediately. Added savings are realized in longer lasting equipment, requiring less maintenance due to the decreased work load.

Infiltration

Properly insulating your home can save hundreds of dollars a year off of your home heating and cooling bills. However, even before you worry about insulation, you need to deal with air infiltration. Air infiltration is about drafts - air leaking into or out of your home. Your home will never be energy efficient if it has air leaks. Sealing air leaks will make your home more comfortable and will result in lowered energy consumption for heating and cooling. Newer homes are built much more tightly than ever before and so much attention is paid to ensuring adequate ventilation. If you successfully seal your home, you must also implement a ventilation strategy. Indoor air pollutants can build to unhealthful levels and so proper ventilation must also be provided. Furthermore, homes that burn natural gas, propane, fuel oil or wood must also make certain that adequate air supply is available for combustion so that a dangerous back draft condition does not pull combustion gases back into the home.

Duct Replacement

Poorly installed or corroded duct work can account for up to 30 percent of your heating and cooling costs, costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars, depending on the size of your residence or building. But more than that, leaky ducts can contaminate your indoor air with mold, dust and toxins that pose a serious health hazards. At All Year Heating and Cooling, we are a full-service duct work company offering fabrication, design, installation and repair service at competitive rates. Our experience and relationships with manufacturers allow us to offer unbeatable prices on all parts and labor.

Signs of inefficient duct systems include:

• System needs frequent repairs.
• Rooms never seem to cool or warm properly
• Home has humidity problems or excessive dust
• Cooling system is noisy
• You keep your thermostat low all winter and still have high heating bills
• Furnace filters are especially dirty
• A significant drop in the amount of air coming out of registers